Tea, ancient yet forever renewed, teeters between austere purity and wild innovation. In 2001, dedicated tea spaces, playful accessories, green and oolong reverence, and boundary-pushing drinks like bubble tea and chai collide. From blue-haired grandmothers to pierced undergrads, America discovers that in tea, what is timeless feels startlingly new.

Tea, ancient and healthful, long languished in America’s “Doily Ghetto,” overshadowed by macho coffee culture and boys-only British coffee houses. Twining’s inclusive tea rooms cracked the door; coffeehouses whisper-sold Darjeeling. Now tea stands unapologetically center stage—urban, diverse, unpinkied, crossing cultures and generations. Hooray for equal access, hooray for tea!

Truly great tea is quietly vanishing. As demand rises, traditional gardens abandon laborious orthodox manufacture for high‑yield CTC, doubling cups per kilo but erasing leaf style, nuance, and heritage. Only consumers, valuing hand‑crafted teas and accepting fair prices per cup, can sustain orthodox production and preserve tea’s thousands‑year-old spectrum of flavor.